


A Little Might

by ghostking (damnedtreasure)



Series: The Depth Of Winter [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Rewrite, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-04 17:04:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14597649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damnedtreasure/pseuds/ghostking
Summary: There is a story, one you probably know well by now, of a boy with a scar who found magic in a dark cupboard under the stairs of a home that hated him. He found magic through a letter, and went to a magical school, and was sorted to the house of bravery. He went through life with few adults on his side, and made it through each obstacle thrown his way, and he lived happily ever after with his wife and three kids.There's no moving forward from "all was well.”So let's tell a new story.Wherein Harry meets a zookeeper on Dudley's birthday who accidentally lets a few things slip. Like how she too can speak to snakes, and that magic exists in the world.





	A Little Might

On what could barely be called a mattress in the cupboard under the stairs of Number Four Privet Drive, Harry Potter dreamed. 

He was fond of dreaming, it was one of his most loved pastimes, aside from reading, of course. Harry loved to dream that he was someplace -or sometime- else. Whenever he did not want to be in his own world, full of Dursleys and cupboards, he could visit other worlds in his mind, or, if he was very lucky, in the pages of a book. And because Harry did not often want to live in his own world, so full of cupboards and Dursleys as it was, he dreamed and read as often as he could. 

It was too early in the day to use his torch to read one of the books he had hidden away, Aunt Petunia would see the light when she came to his door. Instead, he thought very hard of the world in his book, where there was a magical wardrobe and a lamp post, and a land that was always winter. If he believed hard enough, he could almost see himself in that world, where journeying to a magical land of winter and lamp-posts was only a matter of finding the right wardrobe. 

"Boy!" Harry was snapped from his thoughts by the sharp voice of his Aunt Petunia. "Get up," she ordered from the hall outside his cupboard. "Now!" 

"Yes, Aunt Petunia," Harry said, and waited for the sound of the lock sliding open before he opened the cupboard door. 

Harry blinked against the brightness of the hallway and followed Aunt Petunia into the kitchen. A glance at the clock on the oven told him that it was just after seven o'clock. It would be a quick breakfast for his uncle before he left for work. Eggs would do, Harry thought, they had six left. He did hope there were six left, or he might have to make oatmeal for Uncle Vernon, and Uncle Vernon hated oatmeal, so Harry would probably get blamed for it.

When he opened the carton he was surprised to find not six, as he remembered, but nine eggs. Harry was happy at this, as it meant that no one would be hungry. Well, except him, he supposed, but there wasn't much he could do about his punishment for somehow turning his teacher's hair blue. He didn't know how he could have, and suspected his cousin Dudley had something to do with it, but it was no use trying to persuade his aunt and uncle of that. 

Aunt Petunia was flipping through her recipe book looking for something, though Harry didn't know what. "You haven't used the last of the cinnamon, have you, boy?" she asked him. 

"No, Aunt Petunia. There's still lots." Harry said, and though he was curious, he knew better than to ask his aunt what she was looking for. The first rule in the Dursley household was that he was not to ask questions, and Harry had learned this rule well, so he kept cooking the eggs, and tried as best he could to seem invisible. 

"Tomorrow is Duddikins' birthday, the house must be spotless," she told him. "You'll be out in the garden today, Aline Polkiss made a comment about how dry the hostas looked."

"Yes, Aunt Petunia." Harry hid his grimace. He'd forgotten Dudley's birthday. He hadn't realised how far into June it had gotten. Only one month, and he would be eleven! He didn't expect anyone but him to remember, of course, it was only him, but he'd make sure to save up some of his food for a treat.

"Don't burn the eggs, boy," Petunia scolded, though the eggs weren't burnt at all, and Harry wasn't likely to burn them.

Harry hadn't ruined a meal since he was seven, but Aunt Petunia like to accuse him of it, and it was better for her to be happy in the mornings.

Harry heard the heavy footfalls of his uncle coming down the stairs and rushed to make sure the coffee hadn’t burnt. He knew there'd be hell to pay if he had.

"Good morning, dear," Uncle Vernon said, taking the coffee from the table and kissing Aunt Petunia. 

"Good morning. Dudley's slept in, he won't be down for breakfast."

"Where  _ is _ breakfast?" Vernon turned to Harry, who was hastily pushing the eggs onto a plate for him. 

"Here, Uncle Vernon."

"What are you dawdling about for, boy, get off to work!" Aunt Petunia shooed Harry away and out to the back garden. 

Harry looked over the lawn, deciding where he should start. Aunt Petunia would probably like the front yard done first, so Harry gathered a trowel and a bucket from the shed. If no one had been weeding for near two weeks, and he suspected no one had, that would certainly need to be done first. 

The front yard had very little to distinguish it from the other yards of Privet Drive, just as the house itself had little but the colour of the shingles and the brass doorknocker to distinguish it from number five and three and all the rest. . 

The front garden was the most notable thing about Number Four, and it was something that both Harry and his Aunt Petunia were quite proud of. Harry tended to each plant, vegetable and flower, and Aunt Petunia bragged about her award-winning garden to every neighbour who would listen. 

Unfortunately for Harry, in his imposed absence, no one had weeded the yard or garden, and so dandelions had sprung up everywhere. A few vines had been allowed to creep out of their place, and Harry knew he'd be pruning everything back into shape when he wasn't weeding.

Nevertheless, Harry set to work on pushing back the dandelion population, but paused when one of the neighbourhood strays wandered up to him. 

Mrs Figg, a frail-looking woman on Privet Drive, fed every stray cat that she possibly could, and named each and every one. Harry was often sent to be watched by Mrs Figg when the Dursleys went out, and more often than not, these visits included Harry feeding the cats. He didn't quite mind, except for the smell of cat food.

The cat crossing the street now was one that Mrs Figg called Minnie. She had little almost square-shaped markings around her eyes that separated her from the many other cats of Privet Drive.

Minnie trotted up to Harry and meowed at him. He patted her head and offered her a bit of cheese he was going to save for later from his pocket. 

"It's not meat, but it is something, right?" Harry murmured to her. 

She took the piece of cheese and ate it, laying down in the sun beside him, purring loudly. 

"I can't pet you right now, sorry, I've got yard work to do."

Minnie didn't seem to mind, slowly blinking at him before closing her eyes, looking perfectly content to bask in the sunshine.

Harry went back to work but kept up a little one-sided conversation with Minnie. It never hurt to be polite, and in some of the books he’d read at the library, sometimes not being polite to those who one could never hope to understand was a terribly unwise choice. 

"You wouldn't happen to know of a black cat with purple eyes, would you?" Harry asked her, remembering one such cat from a book he'd read in the library once, about lady-knights and magic and kings and gods. 

Minnie cracked one eye open slightly to look at Harry, who shrugged. 

"A magical cat in a book I've read, that's all. I reckon if he were real, a cat would know him."

Minnie went back to sunbathing, and Harry went back to gardening. Minnie continued to keep him company, getting up and strolling over to his side as he moved down the garden, even following him as he pushed the lawn mower. She didn't seem bothered by the noise of the mower and even seemed to be listening to Harry as he made polite conversation.

Around two in the afternoon, Harry apologised to Minnie, as he had to go inside. "It was very nice talking to you, Minnie."

When he went inside and started to dust the living room, he saw Minnie laying on the windowsill. He didn't mind housework nearly as much when he had a friendly face to look to.

When he had cleaned the house to Aunt Petunia's satisfaction, Harry retreated to his cupboard and, after making sure Aunt Petunia wasn't around to punish him for reading a book about magic, he pulled the book about the wardrobe out from under his mattress and immersed himself in another world. 

**Author's Note:**

> So! this is the first chapter of the first book in my very own hp rewrite! I've got a few more chapters already written and a (vague) outline for the rest and the other six books, but I really don't have a set update schedule for this, sorry. Thank you for reading, if you liked it, or if you think I can do things better and have some advice, please leave a comment.  
> Heavily inspired by Thomas Paine's Crisis No 1, which is where the title comes from, and lines from it may make cameos in the future.  
> I do not own Harry Potter, which is property of J K Rowling, nor do I own Narnia, or The Song Of The Lioness Quartet, which are the two books Harry remembers in this chapter.  
> I'm on tumblr @damnedtreasure! Major major thank yous to @strikinghope who is amazing and really this story would not exist without.


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